


Bitin' It

by grnidshrk



Series: Shades In the Grey: Paradise Skies [9]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Shade Verse, Psychopomp AU, Shadeverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grnidshrk/pseuds/grnidshrk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had to be feeling the after affects of the adrenaline dump from almost drowning; she had to be. Of course that wasn't even taking into consideration that it hadn't felt like she was drowning at all, that coming up for air and coughing up water hadn't made her lungs burn for the water like the air was suddenly to dry, like she was drowning in it instead. There must be something wrong with her eyes because everything was muted and grey and nothing was quite right any more.</p><p>It was a warm comfort to have her more experienced teammate with her but that also begged the question, why were Danny's eyes <i>gold</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitin' It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shy_dragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shy_dragon/gifts).



> First person to guess which animal Kono is able to turn into will have the pleasure of helping me figure out what to put in the next chapter of any of the fandoms of the universe.
> 
> Need a hint? It's an animal that lives in tide pools.

Kono sat on her board as she watched Hawaiian natives alike ride the waves. She had always used surfing to center herself, to forget about her problems and the thoughts plaguing her mind, and it was one of the reasons why blowing her knee out had been so hard on her. Now she was using it to try and forget that the grey spectres of her childhood, the ghosts that no one else had ever seen, had come back. So many questions bounced around in her head—Danny could see them too? Why couldn't any of her family see them, why just her? Could Grace see them too? How do you deal with it?—and her mind was getting cluttered, making it hard to sleep or concentrate of work. 

Shaking her head to rid herself of her thoughts she took her turn at the waves, trying to let the water wash away all of her thoughts. 

Kono was riding a tall swell when she saw him, another grey apparition sitting on a board waiting for his turn. It startled her so much that she lost her footing and fell into the churning waters below, not realizing the change of the colors around her as she stared stupefied at the man until the water obscured her sight of him. She squeezed her eyes closed tight as the water battered her around, trying to overcome the shock before she tried to swim her way to the surface; she had never seen one of them surfing before. 

She was so distracted by her thoughts she never realized how long she was under water.

When she felt a calloused hand grip on her arm as she fought with the water to find her way to air and followed it as it helped tug in the right direction. She coughed up water as soon as they broke the surface and held onto her board when it was in reach, the strong hand now rubbing her back as she tried to catch her breath causing her to look into worried eyes as blue as the waves she had been riding. She couldn't help but tremble slightly, both from shock and from almost drowning, as Danny helped her back onto her board and getting on himself before making their way to shore. She kept her eyes closed and leaned against his strong back, just thankful that he was there to help her and still partially denying that everything around her was different as much as it was still the same.

When they reached the shore she kept her eyes on him, on the tanned shoulders and blond hair and not the churlishly colored water or the sun that reminded her of blood blossoming from a bullet wound. She wasn't just trembling anymore, now she was shivering—in fear or from the sudden drop of adrenaline she wasn't sure—and she couldn't help but be grateful as Danny wrapped her up in a towel she watched him pull from an older styled Camaro, this one black with silver stripes that glinted with a red shimmer in the sun light. 

She watched as he sighed and ran a hand through his wet hair, blue eyes staring out as the waves before he turned to her and gave her a small grin, his voice gentle like when he was dealing with rattled witnesses or grieving family, "Well, I suppose if it had to happen now is as good a time as any to explain it to you."

She couldn't help it as her hackles rose at being treated so gently, her eyes narrowing, "I may not know what the hell is going on, Danny, but that doesn't mean you need to treat me like a damsel in distress."

Danny held his hands up in surrender, giving her a grin reminiscent of his school days, sharp and slightly wild at the edges, his eyes flashing a golden orange color so quickly she wasn't even sure she saw it, "Alright whatever you say, Kono. Why don't you get in the car then and we'll go to a place I know, you'll it like even if you don't get it or think it's gross at first. Their take on a Manapua is pretty good." 

Kono's scowl softened as she sighed and nodded, walking over to the passenger side and getting in, admiring the beauty of the classic and trying not to notice the differences around her. They were both silent as Danny drove, Kono biting her lip as she saw people walking past them whenever they stopped at an oddly colored light, some of them looking completely normal and others burnt, bleeding from wounds, or their eyes glazed and cloudy from drowning. She couldn't help but clutch the towel closer around her as she shuddered in discontent, missing the slightly worried look Danny cast her before moving on.

When they pulled into the parking lot of a manapua shop in the same place Libby's was among the living Kono's eyes widened as Danny explained, "Often times family or someone who's used to something in a certain place while they're alive will open or convince another person to open a store similar in that place when they're dead. Things change and people move on here about the same as they do living so this place changes, it's not set in stone." He got out and motioned for Kono to follow him, "Remember, I said this place is similar, not the same. They're a little less brisk and there are places to sit here. If you don't mind, get us a table and I'll snag us some food and a couple of beers, we'll need them."

Kono just sighed and found a table near the window as she watched as Danny go up to the counter and chat with the person behind it. It was weird watching him chat with the girl behind the counter, leaning against it and smiling at her as she wrote down their order and chatted back with him. She looked normal, Kono realized, nothing to show for how she died, at least there wasn't until she watched her move to slap Danny's shoulder for some kind of comment and saw the gash across her arm. It didn't look right and her brow scrunched together as she tried to think on what would have made a mark like it.

When Danny sat across from her he noticed her attention on the girl he had been speaking with and sighed. "Her name is Aolani and no she didn't kill herself," he took a drink of the bottle in front of him as she turned her slightly surprised and mildly ashamed eyes on him, knowing he had realized what she thought the girl had done, "She doesn't look it anymore but she was in a car accident and that's what killed her. That gash is the only reminder of what happened to her and I don't think she wants it to go away. Sometimes people don't want any reminders and others do."

He shrugged as she looked at him and took a drink of the beer in front of him before she glanced at Aolani and then back at him. Kono looked down at the bottle in front of her, digesting his words before taking in the label of the drink in front of her, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. "Are you trying to kill me Danny?" she lifted up the bottle and pointed at the picture on the label, "Look at this, it’s the Be-Still tree, it's poisonous."

Danny grinned at her that same sharp grin from earlier looking into her eyes, eyes she hadn't realized had changed from their normal brown to grey with oddly rectangular pupils, and showed her that he held the same bottle as her, "Trust me Kono, if I wanted to kill you I would have to try a lot harder than this. Try it, you'll be fine I promise and you might be surprised to find that you like it." 

His grin got wider as she narrowed her eyes and the dark almost black streaks that had shifted into her hair and the thick lines that moved across he shoulders in rather beautiful asymmetry flashed blue in warning as she took a sip of her drink before she made a startled sound low in her throat and took a bigger drink before looking at the bottle again with a new appreciation. Her eyes were still grey and the shape of her pupils were still that of longitudinal rectangles but the lines and streaks were no longer flashing in warning when she looked back up at him, her eyes curious and suspicious, "Alright, it tastes good and I've never tasted anything quite like it but is it really made from the Be-Still tree or is that just a quirky name for a good drink?" 

His laughter is more airy than she's ever heard it, it has an odd quality to it, almost like there is a bird screeching somewhere deep in his chest beneath the laughter. When he's mostly done laughing he takes a quick drink before he's looking her in the eye again but this time his eyes are no longer that beautiful ocean blue but the brilliant golden orange she had caught a glimpse of earlier, "Oh, it is, it really is, no one here would find it quite as tasteful if it wasn't." 

He sits back and the way he cocks his head to the side reminds her so strongly of a bird she can almost see it, "Us being us, we're . . . people who live in between Kono. Always able to live and laugh and grieve with the living and to discover and watch and mourn those still living as life moves on in a different way among the dead. We could live on either side, be one or the other and walk between them with ease, at least a good portion of us can, and it makes us different in ways beyond just where we can travel and who we can talk too even after their time has come." He waved a hand over the food stuffs on the table between them, his hands just as active as ever, "This is just more of that, when I said we could move and live between the two I mean it, the things here can sustain us and taste just as good, if not better sometimes, as the food we eat on the other side."

Kono looked at the steamed buns resting on the table, knowing that their contents must be just as different as the ingredients to the drink she'd found she'd prefer to others she'd had before all of this. Hesitating only slightly she picked on up and bit into it, the smooth texture of the bun meshing nicely with the crunchy and slightly spicy center, she couldn't help but finish it off before looking questioningly at the blond in front on her, an eyebrow raised high.

"Fried Wandering Brazilian Spiders with small chunks of Habanero," he said with a shrug before picking one up himself and eating it. He motioned for her to eat more if she wanted and the two of them ate in a contented if not slightly charged silence as they both contemplated everything that had been said and done since the day had begun.

They both knew this wasn't going to be the end of the questions Kono had or the answers Danny would be giving her, but they were both fine with letting it rest. For now.


End file.
